Scientists in Barks/Rosa comics





    Carl Barks liked to use mad or delirious scientists in his stories. It already happened that Don Rosa uses scientists invented by Barks for his own stories, and even that he invents his own scientists... I tried to make a list of all the scientists in their work :

-Professor Mollicule:
This tall bald dogfaced professor is very naive, and he doesn't always foresee the consequencies of his experiences, a little bit like Gyro Gearloose... He is a friend of Donald and Scrooge. He lives in Duckburg and is of American nationality. He first appears in Barks' "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" (Cheerios Premiums Giveaway, 1947), in which he brings his help to Donald? who created a new kind of atom bomb.Then, he comes back in Don Rosa's 1991's "The Duck Who Fell to Earth" (D 90161), in which he works for Scrooge and has invented a new fuel which is able to burn without oxygen, which he associates with a 1949's plane Scrooge bought by auction to travel in space... In the second story, he seems to play Gyro's part...

-Professor Sleezy:
This other bald scientist is also from "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb". He is first said to be a friend of Mollicule, but we eventually see that he just wants to steal Donald's bomb's formula for his country. In this story, it is just said that he is a foreigner, but we're not given his nationality... We could easily imagin that he is from Brutopia...

-Professor Bluebeard:
This nutty professor is only interrested in one thing : cabbages ! He loves them, and they are his only subject for experiences... He desesperately tries to invent a special ray to remove the smell of boiled cabbages, but he never finds the solution (he succeded in removing the smell, but he removed the taste too!) and he accidentally discovers much more dangerous rays... First, in Barks' "The Mysterious Unfinished Invention" (US 8, 1954, aka "The Mysterious Stoneray"), the ray he discovered makes the people it touches become stone, so the professor decided to go into exile on an unknown island, where he can be in peace... until his cabbages reserve is empty and until the beagle boys discover the island...
Then, in Don Rosa's "Cash Flow" (AR 106) he discovered two new rays : an anti-friction ray which makes all it touches become slippery, and an anti-inertia ray, which he exchange to the Beagle Boys against cabbages... In one hand, he can be considered very naive and innocent, because he could become the World's master with hi rays, but he tells there already are too much kings of the World... The only thing he is interrested in are his cabbages, that's why we could say he is a little egoistic... But naive or not, egoistic or not, there is something unquestionable to say about him : he is DANGEROUS !!!
A funny detail about his features : I use to class Disney anthropomised characters in categories : the Duckbills (or anthropomised Ducks, Geese and Ganders), the Birdbeaks (other anthropomised birds, suck as parrots like José Carioca, chickens suck as Clara Cluck or Gyro Gearloose, ...), the Pignoses (pointed ears, pig noses, such as the Three Little Pigs, Herbert Hogg, Percy Pigg...) the Dogfaces (dog noses, ears à la "Droopy" : Goofy, the Beagle Boys,...), the Dognoses (they have a human face, with just a black nose, and human ears ; Arpine Lusène and Monsieur Mollay are examples of Dognoses ), the Mousears (Mickey Mouse,...), and the other animals... It often happens that Duckbills or Birdbeaks have ears. Most of the time, they are pointed ears as for the Pignoses, or human ears, but I think Bluebeard is the only Bird who has... DOG EARS !

The Scientists of Duckburg's Laboratory:
In Barks' "Super Snooper" (WDC 107, 1949), Donald accidentally drinks an isotope send by "Professor Cosmic" and destinated to the tests center, which makes him get superpowers... Don Rosa made a remake of this story, "Super Snooper Strikes Again" (D 91076), in which Donald is a postman and has to bring the same isotope to the laboratory, and we can meet two crazy scientists who work there. They are not important character, but I wanted to include them as they're so silly :-)

-The Scientists from Carl Barks' "Lost in the Andes" :
In Barks' "Lost in the Andes", (OS 223, 1949) we can see a bunch of silly scientist who are dumbfounded in front of the square eggs and chickens...

-The Scientists from Carl Barks' "Christmas for Schacktown" :
In "A Christmas for Shacktown" (OS 367, 1952), Scrooge engages a bunch of silly engineers to save his money because the bottom of his Money Bin collapsed, but they can't help him, saying his money is definitely lost... (In the new sequel of this story, "Gyro's First Invention", by Don Rosa, Gyro Gearloose succeeds where this whole bunch failed)

-Ipsquiggle:
In Barks' "Wily Rival" (US 34),  Gyro Gearloose goes to the patents office kept by Mr. J. Giltfilcher to show his last invention. In the waiting-room, he meets a tall man sit next to what should be his invention, hidden behind a sheet. He wonders what his invention could be, and he worries about this because he is affraid it is the same than his, or worse, it could be a better invention. Finally, we discover that the tall man was the invention (a robot) and the thing under the sheet is its inventor, Ipsquiggle, a funny little man who lisps.

-Pierre de Fraud, alias Black Pete:
In Barks' "The Inventors' Contest" (US 28), Gyro Gearloose participates to an inventors' contest, and his rival is Black Pete, here called Pierre de Fraud.

-Donald Duck:
Donald Duck himself has played this part in some of Barks' stories. That was the case in "Donald Duck's Atom Bomb" (Cheerios Premiums Giveaway, 1947), in which he invents a new kind of atom bomb who makes hair fall down, and also in "The Mad Chemist" (WDC 44, 1944), in which he is accidentally given a shock while playing with the nephews to their chemistry game, which makes him believe he is the biggest scientist in the universe, and then he creates a dangerous explosive, the "Donaldyte", and he even builds a rocket and travels around the moon, but he eventually wakes up and become the normal Donald Duck he was...

-Other scientists:
I've heard about some scientists, the professors Cosmic and Gamma, in Barks' "Rocket Race to the Moon" (WDC 93), and another scientist who is Gyro's neighbour in "Madcap Inventors" (US 38), but I don't have these stories, so help is welcome.
uuh... thanx!

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